R41848.pdf - Intelligence Information: Need-to-Know vs....

CRS Report for Congress
Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress
Intelligence Information: Need-to-Know vs.
Need-to-Share
Richard A. Best Jr.
Specialist in National Defense
June 6, 2011
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
R41848

Intelligence Information: Need-to-Know vs. Need-to-Share
Congressional Research Service
Summary
Unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence are seen as doing significant damage to U.S.
security. This is the case whether information is disclosed to a foreign government or published
on the Internet. On the other hand, if intelligence is not made available to government officials
who need it to do their jobs, enormous expenditures on collection, analysis, and dissemination are
wasted. These conflicting concerns require careful and difficult balancing.
Investigations of the 9/11 attacks concluded that both technical and policy barriers had limited
sharing of information collected by different agencies that, if viewed together, could have
provided useful insight into the unfolding plot. A consensus emerged that U.S. intelligence
agencies should share information more widely in order that analysts could integrate clues
acquired by different agencies in order to “connect the dots.”
Major statutory and regulatory changes were made to facilitate information sharing among
agencies. An Information Sharing Environment was created within the new Office of the Director
of National Intelligence in order to establish policies, procedures, and technologies to link people,
systems, and information from government agencies. In law and in Federal regulations a culture
of sharing has been established in the Intelligence Community.
Although government officials maintain that policies designed in recent years to increase sharing
have helped prevent a number of serious terrorist attacks and contributed significantly to the May
2, 2011 operation against Osama bin Laden, the results have been uneven and, in some cases,
unfortunate. Reviews of the Fort Hood shooting in 2009 and the attempted bombing of a
commercial airliner the following Christmas revealed that serious obstacles to information
sharing had not been completely overcome. At the same time, wide availability of State
Department cables provided the opportunity for massive leaks of classified documents (including
some intelligence materials) through the WikiLeaks website and cooperating media.
Despite these developments, support for information sharing among intelligence agencies remains
strong within both the executive branch and Congress. Intelligence Community representatives
have recently described new technologies and procedures to enhance information security
including capabilities to determine who has had access to particular reports. Members of
Congress included legislative initiatives to accomplish similar goals in FY2011 intelligence
authorization legislation (H.R. 754) that has passed both the House and Senate. The challenge